I remember as a child hearing my mom say, “Karen, Karen, sweet and able, get your elbows off the table, this is not a horse’s stable.” I thought the rhyme was entertaining and my mom thought it was effective. I soon learned that I was not allowed to rest my elbows on the table. Similarly, I teach tall dogs that they are not allowed to have their heads on the table.

We were dogsitting a large dog named Bear whose height made it easy for him to rest his head on our dining room table. After photographing him at the table, I used the cue “leave it” to let him know that the table was off limits to him. I reinforced him with a chew toy for choosing to back away from the table and thereafter reinforced him for resisting the urge to put his head there again. He seemed familiar with the rule already, so I suspected that he had the same rule at home. We avoided leaving food on the table so that there was less temptation, but he followed our guidelines agreeably.

Though I don’t want dogs to put their heads on our table, I can’t deny that they look awfully endearing when they do so. Do you let your dogs rest their heads on the table, and if not, has it been challenging or straightforward to teach them that this behavior is not allowed?